Japan: 2 Bitcoin Exchanges Choose Shutdown Over Regulatory Compliance

Japan is to lose the Mr. Exchange and Tokyo GateWay crypto exchanges as regulators step up requirements after the Coincheck hack.

Japan’s financial services regulator continues to reshape the country’s cryptocurrency exchange industry as two operators announce they are closing, local source Nikkei states March 28.

Two Japanese exchanges, Mr. Exchange and Tokyo GateWay, will cease trading once they have returned customer funds, according to Nikkei.

The news comes as financial regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) challenges exchanges to prove their security credentials in the wake of Coincheck’s $530 mln hack in January.

As a result of FSA inspections and requests, several operators have opted to stop servicing the Japanese market, Cointelegraph previously reported.

Prior to their closure, Mr. Exchange and Tokyo GateWay were both in the process of securing a license as part of a scheme introduced by Japan in April 2017.

In a blog post March 29, the former confirmed it had withdrawn its application:

“While this is a regrettable result, at present we have determined that it is difficult to be in a state of readiness to be able to respond to changes in the virtual currency landscape, so we decided to withdraw the application for a virtual currency exchange business.”

Tokyo GateWay’s website is currently offline, with no official correspondence available to confirm the Nikkei report.

The FSA meanwhile continues to drip-feed new market players to Japanese consumers, with 16 exchanges obtaining a license since the scheme opened.

This week, internet giant Yahoo! announced it would seek to launch its own operation by April 2019.